Marvel Universe
Revisiting the Roots in this franchise. open/close all folders
Comic Books
Comic Books
- Spider-Man
- Spider-Gwen: Earth-65's Peter acts much more like the Steve Ditko Era Peter Parker than the more recognizable characterization that he would come to be associated with. Without becoming Spider-Man and the traumatic lesson that Uncle Ben's death taught him, Peter is much more awkward and inwardly misanthropic than his more heroic 616 counterpart and his bitterness leads to tragedy.
- The Amazing Spider-Man (2018) is a massive case of this overlapping with Salvaged Story. After the post One More Day comics and Dan Slott era reduced Spidey for years into an immature selfish Jerkass Woobie who gave even Iron Man a run for his money in the self-destructive, impulsive Manchild department. Nick Spencer casts off all the baggage of the post OMD era bringing Peter back to the loveable and sympathetic Nice Guy and The Everyman hero he was for decades as Marvel’s poster boy. Likewise Mary Jane was rewritten to be the supportive and cool girlfriend rather the selfish and nagging character she’s been for ages. Tragically after Nick Spencer left and Zeb Wells took over all the Darker and Edgier
Character Derailment returned and was dialled up to 11, thanks in part to the same editorial meddling as One More Day.
- Civil War: In-Universe. The Thing doesn't want to take sides, and leaves the United States, moving to France. Once in Paris, a local superhero team request his help for a grave crisis. So what now? A secret government agency that turns against its people? A multinational conspiracy? A war between superheroes? No, it's the "empereur le monde souterrain", a French expy of the Mole Man, who threatens to destroy Paris with his underground rocky creatures. Like in Ye Goode Olde Days of Black-and-White Morality of The Silver Age of Comic Books. Sick of the mess back home, Ben is very happy to help them fight such an old-school and straightforward threat.
- Heroes Reborn (2021): Miles, Kamala and Sam became superheroes by other means and with new powers and identities, and created the "Young Squadron". In the end, however, they suffer a Broken Pedestal and lose their faith in them. Seeking to cut ties with the Squadron, they became the Champions. Because the world still needs heroes.
- Moon Knight: Max Bemis's run (part of Marvel Legacy) quietly dispenses with Warren Ellis and Jeff Lemire's status quo shake ups to return the character to his traditional superhero adventures. This results in Khonshu being revived without explanation, the Mr. Knight persona seemingly forgotten in favor of the original identities of Spector, Grant, and Lockley, and the introduction of more fantastical elements such as a pyrokinetic nemesis for Moon Knight. This is also exemplified by the decision to ditch Declan Shalvey's redesign for a return to the original all-white costume.
- Squadron Supreme: New World Order: With this story, the Squadron Supreme returned to the spirit of the famous 12-issues limited series.
- The 2008 miniseries Sub-Mariner: The Depths was an attempt at bringing Namor back to his original Golden Age roots, where he was a murderous Villain Protagonist instead of the Jerkass Revolving Door Anti-Hero he's best known as today. The mini-series was basically a horror story and Psychological Thriller rather than a superhero tale, with Namor depicted in a manner similar to Godzilla or the shark from Jaws. Curiously, Namor saves Dr. Stein at the end and brings him back to the surface, rather than killing him. It's implied that Namor did this because Stein is famous for providing rational explanations for unsolved mysteries, such as the Yeti, and ultimately he does so with Atlantis, declaring that it doesn't exist even though it does, with footage of it being recorded.
- The Incredible Hulk
- Al Ewing's The Immortal Hulk; not only is Bruce Banner Walking the Earth once again, but the book revisits the horror tone of the earliest Hulk comics. Instead of the "wounded child" or "bar-room brawler" interpretations, this Hulk is a smirking monster who enjoys taunting people about their unspeakable desires. And he only hulks out at night. Additionally, it was retconned that the Immortal Hulk is the true form of the Devil Hulk—and relevant to this trope, the Devil/Immortal Hulk is actually the Hulk seen in Banner's first few appearances. On a similar note Betty gets her Red She Hulk form fused with her Harpy form — a transformation not seen since the 70s.
- The Incredible Hulk (2023): Similar to the Al Ewing run, the comic takes Hulk back to his early days as a horror comic in which Bruce Banner wanders from town to town while grappling with his affliction.
- The Avengers:
- During the nineties, there were some attempts to fit the Avengers into The Dark Age of Comic Books. The Wasp turned into a freak monster, Iron Man a time displaced freak, many members with leather jackets, a X-Men tone, Deathcry... the fandom did not rejoice. Marvel tried to fix it with Heroes Reborn: it was like trying to extinguish the fire with oil. Finally, the Avengers became once more a viable comic book with Kurt Busiek and George Perez, who took a "back to the roots" angle and ignored the nineties stuff.
- The Avengers (Jason Aaron) was a big call back to The '80s era of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes where the Avengers would go on massive spectacle space adventures and fight various universal and multiversal threats like Celestials in pure high octane Rule of Cool superhero action. Naturally there’s a lot discourse especially from the camp who prefer grounded and “nuanced” Avengers stories over whether this was a sound decision or not. The same run to dismay of a good number of fans temporarily reduces She-Hulk to a savage orgress… exactly how she was when she debuted in 1979.
- Fantastic Four: Fantastic Four (2022) is the very definition of this, being one massive call back to the classical lighthearted Stan Lee and Jack Kirby days when the four were cosmic adventurers and explorers rather than some paramilitary force like the Avengers. The Awesome Art by Alex Ross even makes constant references to Kirby’s art style and techniques.
- The Punisher: The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank: No surveillance, no weird ammo, no strange techs, no partners... this is a return to the basics: Punisher, guns and petty criminals. In fact, this story undid the previous status of Punisher as a supernatural celestial enforcer (which got him cancelled), and turned him into a "normal" character once more.
- Captain Marvel: Captain Marvel (Kelly Thompson) intentionally calls back to the 70s and 80s Chris Claremont era when Carol Danvers was a far less messed up and flawed heroine as Ms. Marvel rather than the unsympathetic Conflict Ball she became after her 2012 relaunch as Captain Marvel. The same run brings back her Binary persona, her war with the Brood and her troubled rivalry/friendship with Rogue whom she had barely interacted with upon taking the Captain Marvel title.
- Ant-Man: Ant-Man (2022) and Wasp (2023) by Al Ewing, both throw-back runs, celebrating the fun and 60s-70s Narm Charm the titular shrinking characters once exemplified after decades of incredibly depressing Darker and Edgier storylines and character changes. The former series in particular undoes the Fallen Hero status of Hank and separates him from Ultron completely as well as literally harkening back to the time where he was just a Science Hero with ant-buddies and an Action Girlfriend. The Wasp series even brings back Pilai the antagonist of Janet’s very first appearance.
- X-Men:
- Excalibur (2019): Excalibur sees Betsy return to her core as a British-based character. Originally, she was introduced as a supporting character for her brother, and as she became more prominent she played heavily into the British side of Marvel — until Chris Claremont had her move to the United States, and then made her into a ninja. By that point she was an America-based character who was British. Here, she's a major hero in the British side once again.
- Grant Morrison's New X-Men also did this for the X-Men comics. It's one of the few modern X-Men runs that takes most of its cues from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's earliest X-Men stories from the '60s, rather than Chris Claremont and John Byrne's stories from the '70s and '80s (which influenced most later writers). As such: the story sees the X-Men becoming teachers and mentors for a new generation of teenage mutants after the truth about the Xavier Institute is finally revealed to the world, hearkening back to the series' origins as a teen-focused series set at a boarding school for young mutants. There are five core X-Men, and they wear matching costumes once again. It's relatively light on action and spectacle, generally portraying various mutants' powers as more weird than cool, recalling the X-Men's origins as "The strangest super-heroes of all!". More controversially: Morrison's interpretation of Magneto returns the character to his roots as a deranged megalomaniac with zero redeeming qualities (mostly disregarding his years as a tormented Well-Intentioned Extremist). note
- Return of Wolverine: The series' approach to Wolverine seemingly resets him back to his original state: he is now amnesiac and doesn't know how he got his powers. This hasn't been a thing since House of M happened and gave him full access to his memories. In the end it's averted, as Logan releases all his memories and aspects anyway... except his berserker side — what this means going forward in unclear.
- X-Force (2018): The cast is meant to invoke this, as it consists of all the surviving members of the original X-Force.
- War of the Realms: The X-Men tie-in focuses on the former members of New Mutants, namely through their connection to their legendary trip to Asgard where Dani Moonstar became a Valkyrie.
- X-Men (2021) X-Men: After nearly three years of self-isolation from the rest of the Marvel Universe, the X-Men go back to their roots as a genuine superhero team.
- Fall of X: The storyline goes back to the X-Men's classic plot points of being defenders of a world that hates and fears them. Further cementing this is Kate returning to her Shadowcat identity (though renamed “Shadowkat”) and Wolverine returning to his classic yellow and blue uniform.
- Ultimate Marvel:
- From time to time, an element that was changed for the adaption, suddenly tilts back to the way it was (or is) in the regular Marvel Universe. For example, the Avengers began as a group of super-powered agents of SHIELD, and stayed that way for the first two arcs... and at the end of the second, they are a group of superheroes working on their own, financed by the wealth of Tony Stark (precisely their usual status in the Marvel Universe, at least before the contemporary Civil War). The Scarlet Witch donned her classic suit, Thor is shown to actually be a god from Asgard and not just a lunatic, and some topics that were initially avoided for being too fantastic (such as aliens and time-travel) finally got their space.
- Ultimate Spider-Man featured an incredibly moody and irritable Peter Parker that lashed out at people when upset and was pretty isolated from others. Pretty jarring compared to All-Loving Hero mainstream Spidey most fans know and love, but like with Spider-Gwen this was actually all on brand with how Peter used to be when first created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in the 60s. Not an incorruptible champion underdog, just a Troubled Teen touched on the shoulder by fate.
- Captain America in The Ultimates controversially getting massive Adaptational Jerkass from The Paragon to a rude, racist, gritty, hotheaded vigilante bully is a source of pain for many comic readers to this day. Yet open any classic Captain America comic by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and you’ll find that 1940s Cap was actually quite the jerk who disrespected and humiliated his superior officer, was pretty racist and jingoistic and frequently insulted his foes calling them “rats”. Naturally mainstream Cap Took a Level in Kindness when he was reintroduced into post war comics and his more unsavoury traits getting either ignored or retconned away. Ultimate Steve Rogers however brings back all Golden Age Cap’s flaws with a vengeance.
- Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye: This miniseries does away with the "bullseye" suit used since Ultimates 3, and restored the original look of Ultimate Hawkeye, just in time for the MCU adaptation.
- Ultimate X-Men (2001): The mainstream Magneto started as a completely evil villain with no redeeming qualities. He was turned into a morally complex, ambiguous figure later on. Here, he's back to the roots, as nothing more than a repugnant mutant supremacist and genocidal maniac.
Films
Films
- X-Men: Days of Future Past undid the slightly more grounded feel and the established continuity of the first three or so films. This had the advantage of restoring much of the original status quo and introducing various elements more familiar to the fans of the comics or cartoon, like Xavier's hover wheelchair and the Sentinels. The trend continued in X-Men: Apocalypse, which looked at the team's pre-adult life and gave them their iconic costumes.
Live-Action TV
Live-Action TV
- Daredevil (2015): Season 3 was considered a significant improvement over season 2. For many, going back to season 1's formula and having Wilson Fisk as the main villain (and spicing things up by introducing Dex as a secondary villain) was seen as a step in the right direction after the mishandling of the Hand arc across season 2 and The Defenders (2017).
Western Animation
Western Animation
- The first two seasons of X-Men: Evolution are essentially this for the X-Men mythos, returning to the original premise of the comics: a High School drama about teenage mutants learning to control their powers while dealing with the typical struggles of growing up.
- While The Spectacular Spider-Man took a lot of aspects from across Spidey's canon, it specifically drew many storylines and plotlines from The Amazing Spider-Man: making it very much a high school drama, with Gwen Stacy and Liz Allan appearing before Mary Jane for the spot of Peter's main Love Interests (and returning the latter to her original aloof and independent party-girl personality while making her Peter and Gwen's friend and who would have became the main love interest had the show continued, especially since Peter's other relationships with Liz and Gwen end on a low note by Season 2. The show is even credited as "created by" Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and only "adapted" by Greg Weisman and Victor Cook.
